Being the brilliant mind that I am, I decided to quit using my aluminum-laden deodorant smack dab in the hottest week of the summer. So I trucked over to Akin’s Natural Food store and picked up a deodorant crystal.

Things didn’t go too well. I smelled bad. Like, worse than patchoulli masked BO. It was amusing because no one would tell me either. And I asked them to! Still, I gave it a good three weeks to give my body chemistry a chance to get used to the lack of aluminum.

To no avail. I don’t sweat much so I figured it had to be the weather. I gave up the stench and went back to the old toxic standard.

The whole experience caused my armpits to secede from the union, complete with irritation and breakouts. After six months, all has healed and balance is restored.
And it is now a balmy 40 degrees and I’ve decided to try again. This time, though I tried a Toms of Main product instead of just the crystal.

So, since I knew you’d all want to keep up with my armpit adventure I figured we’d keep score here.

I’m going to measure it in two ways: how much others say I stink and how much I think I stink.

Today is Day 1 of the Great Armpit Adventure.

On a scale of 1-10 with 10 being the stinkiest, I am still a promising 2.

I’ll have to get back to you on the opinion of others. I don’t think it’d be quite appropriate to ask my co-workers. I’ll have to wait until tonight to ask Matt.

2 responses to “It’s Off-Topic Day!”

One thing you might want to be aware of with Tom’s of Maine is that one of the active ingredients is witch-hazel, to which I am desperately allergic. As do a lot of the other non-aluminum deodorants. So, just be careful, that might cause irritation as well.

I haven’t started up my deodorant explorations since my abortive attempts this pass summer. I’m getting ready to start giving it a shot again soon.